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Someone is trying to talk to her, panic slowly edging out the fake calm they’re forcing into their voice, but she isn’t taking in a single thing they’re saying. The words are playing on a loop in her head, refusing to leave her alone. “Angel of death,” she hears his taunting voice jeer, over and over again. She’d hoped this place would be a fresh start, somewhere she could leave behind the baggage of her past that weighed her down so heavily, but Beep Tubbo just had to go and drag it back up. God, even the first friend she’d made here was a ghost. Maybe Tubbo was right, maybe she is haunted, maybe she does kill everything around her. No. No, he’s wrong. Right? She isn’t an angel of death. She isn’t. SHE ISN’T.
A hand on her shoulder pulls her from her thoughts, and she blinks as she tries to make sense of the colors slowly coming into focus. Ghostboo is standing over her, uncertainty painted clearly across his face and his posture. “Uhm, Aimsey, you alright?” He starts, hesitant. “You were, uhm, yelling? Something about ghosts and angels and not being one? I couldn’t really understand.”
Aimsey stretches out her arms as she processes Ghostboo’s words, feeling cool stone against her back as she uncurls from her fetal position. Oh, she was talking out loud? Reaching her hands down for support, she feels the dirt and the flowers, realizing with a start where she is. She doesn’t remember getting here, doesn’t remember anything after the all-encompassing pain of hitting the ground and Tubbo’s shocked expression as white filled her vision. She’ll unpack later what it means that her first instincts after being revived are to run to Guqqie’s grave, but for now, Ghostboo is staring at her. “I’m-” she begins, intending to reassure him that she’s fine, before stopping. “YOU,” she cries instead as the realization hits her, “YOU’RE DEAD?” The tears that had temporarily receded return as she screams. “YOU’RE DEAD AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME,” she continues, hurt and anger mixing as Ghostboo backs up a few steps.
He raises his hands in surrender, opening his mouth to speak but struggling to find the words to placate her. “I— I’m. Sorry? I guess? I didn’t think it mattered.”
“YOU DIDN’T THINK IT MATTERED? YOU DIDN’T THINK THAT YOU BEING A GHOST MATTERED? GOD, YOU’RE JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. YOU MAKE ME TRUST YOU, MAKE ME CARE ABOUT YOU, BUT NO. YOU’RE DEAD TOO.” Aimsey pauses as she shakes with sobs. “Tubbo was right, I’m haunted,” she confesses, softer, to herself more than the ghost. The irony of her original ghost friend seemingly come back to life being the one to call her haunted is almost enough to make her laugh through the tears.
Taken aback by her ire, Ghostboo forgoes challenging her accusations. “Well, I may not stay dead?” he offers instead, hands lowering to a placating shrug. At Aimsey’s confused glance, he continues, “There’s that revive book, you know, the one that can bring people back. I don’t know exactly where it is, but I know some people are trying to find it to use on me. I told them not to, since I’m so much better like this, but they insisted.”
“A book that can revive people?” Aimsey questions, disbelief holding cautious interest at bay. Her mind goes back to the moment right after her death, when she realized that here, death wasn’t permanent. She never would have imagined that’d extend to revival being possible. What a strange place.
“Yeah, the revive book. My friend Tommy—I think you’ve met him—he was revived once.”
“Where is it? How does it work? Can I have it?” Aimsey rushes to ask, moving forward to stand up.
“Well, see, I don’t know, for sure. Last I heard, it was in the prison, but—.”
“The prison? The big obsidian building I was brought to break into right after I got here? I know where that is. Thanks, Ghostboo, you’re not so bad for a ghost.” Aimsey cuts him off, grabbing her bag from the tree and running toward the gate. She needs this book. Tubbo stole her stuff and killed her, Ran is a ghost who lied to her, and all her other friends left their town behind. She desperately needs **someone** who’s alive and actually cares about her.
“—nothing is there anymore.” He finishes quietly, too late to stop Aimsey from rushing out of Daisy Hollow.
Hera doesn’t pay much attention to the original Aimsey. She had her fun, learned what she could from her research, and set her sights somewhere else, somewhere greater. This, though? This is worthy of her focus. The clone and the demon can wait. Her little explorer is looking into revival, so plagued by the ghosts of their past that they can barely function. Hera sees it not as a breakdown but as something else: an opportunity. It’s a perfect opportunity, and she would be a fool not to take advantage of it. After all, no one knows more about death and rebirth than her. No one else can reweave the threads of life to bend exactly to their will, not like she’d perfected with each experiment, with each time the light had left her wife’s eyes. She jots down the perfect amount of information for Aimsey to be successful, but not quite successful enough. She scans the server, locking onto the perfect person for her plan. Planting careful instructions into the sleeping puppet’s mind, Hera sits back to await her second chance.
The prison was a bust, but there was one success from Aimsey’s mission. The revive book exists, he confirmed that. Now he just needs to get his hands on it, and he can fix everything. He can’t sleep, too busy thinking through possibilities in his mind of who he can ask for help and where he can go. Various plans start to come together in his head, whirling through his mind as his excitement builds. He’s startled from his thoughts by a shout from below. Untangling his legs from the tree branches, he bids the sunrise farewell and eases himself down the ladder to see who could possibly be here at—he glances around for a clock—6:43 in the morning.
“Aimsey!” Ghostboo yells again from the doorway.
Rubbing the grogginess from his eyes as he sets his feet on the ground, Aimsey eyes the ghost wearily. “What do you want?” He questions, the edge in his voice communicating clearly that Ghostboo has not been forgiven for his lie by omission.
Ghostboo seems unbothered by the hostility, pulling a slightly crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and holding it out. At Aimsey’s blank stare, he hurriedly explains, “It’s not from me, don’t worry. I was told it will help with your research, whatever that means.”
At the mention of research, Aimsey thrusts his hand out and snatches the paper. “Thanks, bye, don’t bother me for a while” he rambles as he herds Ghostboo out of Daisy Hollow. As soon as the ghost is out of sight, Aimsey rushes inside, unfolding the note and scanning the contents eagerly. He can’t contain the smile that spreads across his face as he nears the end. The grief of losing Guqqie has been consuming him. He tries to pretend he’s fine, to continue with life as normal, but his mask is starting to crumble. He’s felt anguished and numb and heartbroken, but more than anything, he’s been tired. He’s exhausted, so tired of being angry at himself and at Guqqie and at the world, but this is it. This will prove Tubbo wrong and give them a second chance.
As they close the book, Aimsey is consumed for the second time in recent memory by white light. Now, though, they can still feel the grass beneath their feet and the breeze on their skin. They aren’t dead, which can only mean— they dart forward as the light clears, scooping the limp body on the ground in front of them into their arms. It worked. It actually worked. They pull Guqqie close to their chest and bursts into tears. It’s eerily familiar, Aimsey sobbing as they hold Guqqie’s unmoving frame. It’s different, though. This time, they’re hopeful, not devastated. They don’t notice the dampness from the grass seeping into their overalls or the rocks digging into their skin, consumed entirely by Guqqie. The rest of the world fades away. Someone could run at them with a sword and they wouldn’t notice. Their rambled apologies and exclamations of disbelief are only partially coherent, but they don’t care. All that matters is Guqqie, real and in their arms again. “Oh my god, you’re here, oh my god, you’re actually here,” they chant, scrambled brain unable to form any other thoughts. They cut off abruptly, though, as Guqqie reaches a lethargic hand up to rub at her eyes.
“Aimsey? Where am I?” she whispers, voice weak. Her bleary eyes blink open and she winces at the brightness of the sun. “I remember the tower, and being so angry, so so angry, but really sad too. I remember deciding to go home. I don’t know how I got here. Where is here?” Fear seems to creep into her voice as she registers unfamiliar surroundings, but all Aimsey can do is cry, paralyzed by emotion. Guqqie begins to lift her head to look around, but Aimsey pulls her back in, unwilling to let go just yet.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Aimsey sobs, cradling their almost-lover closer. “I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”
Face tucked into Aimsey’s shoulder, Guqqie smirks.
A lone tendril creeps out from the seed, the first claim staked on this body born anew.
Guqqie wants to build a lab. Aimsey had been so excited to show her around the server, to introduce the most important person in his life to the new friends he’d made and to see Guqqie’s reaction to the home he’d been building. The whole time Aimsey was giving the tour, though, Guqqie wouldn’t stop talking about her future lab. He’d wanted to rub it in Tubbo’s face, especially, that he wasn’t alone and that he didn’t curse the people around him, but Guqqie had dragged him away before he could gloat for more than a sentence or two, rattling off the materials they needed to collect for the building. He makes sure, nonetheless, to keep his irritation tightly under wraps. The last thing he wants to do is upset Guqqie so soon after getting her back, and with the way their last fight ended, he’s scared for how she’d react if they got into another major one. So, Aimsey bites his tongue and starts to gather supplies. He can ~~show off~~ introduce Guqqie to the rest of the server another day. For now, he’ll do anything to keep her happy, even if it means building this random lab she’s suddenly obsessed with.
They’re sitting in Aimsey’s tree the next evening when she brings it up. They’d spent all day working on the lab, Guqqie insistent on finishing it as soon as possible, but Aimsey had finally been able to drag her away to Daisy Hollow for dinner. Now, they sit in comfortable silence as the sun sets on the horizon. It would be perfect if it weren’t for the question that’d been weighing heavily on Aimsey’s mind since Guqqie’s return.
“You don’t still want—” she pauses, terrified of shattering the fragile peace between them. “—to go home, right?” she finishes hesitantly.
Surprise flashes across Guqqie’s face at the question, before she quickly schools her features. “Oh, darling, no. I found my real home. It’s with my lab, with my research, with you. This is my second chance, a second chance I never thought I’d get. I’m not going to waste it chasing a destination I’ll never reach,” she reassures, offering Aimsey a small smile.
“A second chance, yeah…” Aimsey echoes with much less certainty. She wants to interrogate Guqqie about what changed. The last time they’d spoken, Guqqie’s desire to go home had overpowered everything else, even their relationship. Did death really affect her that much? She itches to seek clarification, but she feels like she’s walking on eggshells. Any wrong step could topple the delicate balance they’ve found, with their final argument remaining undiscussed. As confusing as Guqqie’s sudden change of heart is, she doesn’t want to take it for granted. So, Aimsey nods. “A second chance,” she repeats, more confidently. “A second chance for us to be happy, to be together, to do everything we missed out on
Guqqie smiles in response, but it doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “A second chance for us to learn about each other and the world, to experience new things together,” she adds, though Aimsey can’t quite place the tone of her voice.
There are more of them now, their dark hues contrasting starkly against the expanses of pale skin they stretch across. They branch off again and again, weaving an intricate web of corruption.
When Guqqie deems the lab complete, Aimsey is beyond relieved. He’s excited to get away from the harsh white walls and sterile interior. There are still people Guqqie needs to meet and places she needs to see. More than that, he wants to spend quality time with her. He wants to have a picnic and play games and talk about their days, like friends or maybe even lovers are wont to do. Despite spending nearly every waking hour working on the lab, they hadn’t had much time to truly enjoy each others’ company, with Guqqie’s unfaltering drive keeping them both busy working. Before he can share his ideas for what they can do next, though, Guqqie begins to pull out some of the supplies they’d gathered. She sets six leafy plants, one of her odder materials requests, onto a table surrounded by plexiglass barriers, and hands Aimsey a notebook and pen. It’s already flipped open to a page with large letters across the top reading ‘Amputation Tolerance’ and the day’s date. Aimsey is understandably confused and concerned, but Guqqie just continues with no explanation. She picks up a ruler and a pair of scissors, cutting off a portion of each leaf and instructing Aimsey to record the measurement. Once she’s gotten every leaf on one plant, she moves to the next, this time cutting off more. By the final plant, only the stems remain.
“Alright, now we wait,” Guqqie exclaims as she steps back behind the clear dividers, grinning in satisfaction. Wait for what, Aimsey doesn’t know, but Guqqie doesn’t elaborate. Instead, she moves toward the door, beckoning Aimsey to follow. “So, about that picnic you mentioned?”
After a few days of relaxation, dates (Dates! Guqqie had asked her on actual dates!), and getting reacquainted with each other, Guqqie drags them back to the lab. All but two of the plants are all shriveled and dry, dying if not dead already, and the slightly healthier two have certainly seen better days still. Aimsey expects Guqqie to be upset, preparing to comfort her and find new plants. Instead, Guqqie lights up at the sight. “Fascinating,” she mumbles, scribbling in the notebook she’d given to Aimsey previously. Turning to face Aimsey, she finally acknowledges their unasked questions. “I wanted to see how the plants would react to different portions of their leaves being cut off and how much I could take off before they’d die,” she explains. Aimsey still doesn’t get why they’re doing this, but they nod anyway, feigning understanding. With Aimsey’s confusion seemingly placated, Guqqie grabs their arm and pulls them toward the door.
“Now we try with rabbits,” she continues, voice light. She sounds excited at the prospect.
“You don’t mean—,” Aimsey starts, unable to conceal their horror at the implication.
“Well of course I do! Don’t tell me you’re backing out, sweetheart. I thought you said you’d do anything for me. Helping me with my research should be nothing.”
A pit begins to form in Aimsey’s stomach as they let themself be dragged toward a meadow.
They’re becoming impossible to conceal now, almost more vines than skin. They reach further and further, tangling across their hands and neck. Soon.
Aimsey stares at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, the memories of the bunnies replay behind his eyelids, how their cries grew weaker and weaker until fading completely. He feels like he’s been in some sort of trance, numbly following Guqqie’s instructions despite his brain screaming in protest. Standing there behind the plastic barriers, unable to do anything but watch, felt like a walking nightmare. Now, laying in bed, Aimsey fights back tears, overcome with despair and anger and disgust as the target of those emotions sleeps calmly beside him. He isn’t successful enough at muffling his sobs, and Guqqie begins to stir.
“Aimsey? What’s happening?” her soft voice questions as she reaches out a hand blindly. When she finds Aimsey’s knee, she rests it there and moves to sit up. Aimsey looks down, startled by an unexpected rough texture, and screams.
The next time Aimsey becomes aware of their surroundings, the first things they notice are the rough ropes binding their wrists and ankles to the wooden chair they’re seated on. Blinking to adjust to the sudden bright light, a person begins to come into focus before them. Guqqie stands there grinning, turquoise vines wrapped around her body.
“Guqqie, help!” Aimsey yells, not quite processing her pleased expression. They tug at their restraints, fighting to stand up.
“Oh, darling, we’re going to have so much fun,” Guqqie replies instead, stepping forward only slightly. “You did promise to help me with my experiments, after all.”
Her comment causes Aimsey to look around for the first time, registering where they are. They’re in that godforsaken lab again, but this time, Aimsey is inside the plexiglass. “Guqqie, what are you doing? What happened to you?” they scream as Guqqie prepares her tools.
“You, sweetheart. You happened to me.”